be in the know

Meaning: To have information that most people do not have.

Language: English

Literally: (Already vivid in English)

Example: “Only the staff in the know were told about the closure.”

Category: Daily Life

Origin: "The know" treats knowledge as a place one can be inside. The phrase is recorded from the late 19th century.

Equivalents in other languages

Spanish: Estar en el ajo — literally: To be in the garlic
Dutch: weten waar Abraham de mosterd haalt — literally: to know where Abraham gets the mustard

be off one's game — To perform worse than usual.
be miles away — To be lost in thought and not paying attention.
take one's ball and go home — To quit in a sulk and spoil the activity for everyone else.
give and take — Mutual compromise, where each side concedes something.
on the sly — Secretly, so as not to be seen.
bail someone out — To rescue someone from trouble, especially by paying.

have had it up to here — To be completely fed up.
sly as a fox — Very cunning.
walk a tightrope — To be in a situation where one small mistake would be disastrous.
a spare tire — A roll of fat around the waist.
count one's chickens before they hatch — To rely on something good before it has actually happened.
small potatoes — Something unimportant or trivial.

Tutear — To switch to the informal tú with someone — a small, deliberate act of closing social dis…
Puente — The day taken off to 'bridge' a midweek public holiday to the weekend, turning it into a…
Vergüenza ajena — The squirming embarrassment felt on behalf of another person, who may be entirely untroub…